


With a Whisper of Hope

by Hellosunshinemyoldfriend



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, No Incest, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Whump, Post Season 2, Protective Siblings, Somebody give that traumatized man a hug!, no beta we die like ben
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:55:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28149450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hellosunshinemyoldfriend/pseuds/Hellosunshinemyoldfriend
Summary: Post season 2 - Hiding out in a motel room with his siblings Five gets the breakdown and the hug he so richly deserves.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 188





	With a Whisper of Hope

**Author's Note:**

> I keep writing what are basically different versions of the same thing because honestly somebody needs to give Five a hug. Dude's not having a great time.

In the end T.S Elliot was right – The world didn’t end with a bang, thanks to the Hargreeves siblings.   
  
(Although seeing they were the ones to **cause** the apocalypse giving them credit for **stopping** it seems a little much.)   
  
The world did however, in its own way, end with a whimper.   
  
The world the Hargreeves had known anyway. And now here they were back in 2019.   
  
A time they had all been desperate to get back to. Albeit it wasn’t _their_ 2019\.   
  
They had become an anomaly. A shadow upon a world that didn’t belong to them. After landing in a house that was no longer theirs to call home, and a father who was no longer theirs.   
  
They had quickly escaped when that penny had dropped.   
  
Their brother, who was also no longer theirs to call brother, had asked who they were and warning sirens had rung out in all their minds.   
  
The air was thick with mystery and danger, and if they had learnt once lesson in the past it was to pick their battles.  
  
So they ran.   
  


Mercifully they were not followed. Though none of them wanted to risk being out in the open for too long.   
  
Allison rumored them all a motel room and they settled into it uneasily as they tried to piece together what kind of world they had fallen into.   
  
  
The room was thick with anxiety, and the silence was unsettling. They all spent the first few days after returning home on edge. No one more than Five of course. He spent the entire first week home bouncing between lurking around dark street corners watching people he deemed “suspicious” and covering every inch of a notebook he had stolen from a corner convenience store in complicated math equations.   
  
It was a lot to deal with. He was snappish and highly strung, but his siblings understood – to a degree. Even knowing the little they did about Five’s existence after he had disappeared during their childhood, you didn’t have to be a genius to recognize trauma when you saw it.   
  
What worried them was how withdrawn he became.   
  
Whenever he couldn’t help but be in close proximity to them he looked pained, flinching away anytime one of them drew too near.   
  
From the very first night they had all shared cramped together in the motel room they had known sooner or later things would come to a boiling point and Five would blow. It was inevitable and yet when it finally happened in the early hours of their seventh morning in the new world, they were all blindsided.   
  
Of course it didn’t help that it was three AM.   
  
They were all fast asleep.   
  
The place they were currently calling home was a cramped little two queen bed motel room, the really old fashion paint-peeling-off-the-walls, questionable-damp-smell type of place, with a lumpy foldout couch and a small kitchenette taking up the majority of the room on one side, and the two queen sized beds on the other.   
  
Allison and Vanya were sharing one of the queen beds, Luther was camped out on the fold out couch because he would have taken up an entire bed by himself, which left the last queen bed for Diego, Klaus and Five to share.   
  
Neither Diego nor Five had been wild about the idea of sharing, but needs must.   
  
(Klaus wasn’t bothered. He had shared a tent in a war zone, not to mention a bed or two with worst people in his lifetime, so sharing with his brothers was an upgrade in a way.  
  
He had also pointed out that Five was “Teeny Tiny” and wouldn’t take up much space. Five ignoring that light-hearted barb on their first night in the room had been the first sign the siblings noticed that Five was not okay.)   
  
There were many other signs that they each noticed over the week but nothing as alarming as when Five woke up screaming bloody murder at three AM on their seventh night.   
  
Almost in unison the siblings bolted upright in bed.   
  
‘Guys?’ Luther’s voice heavy with sleep called out from the couch.   
  
Vanya reached out quickly to flick the switch on the wall beside her. All of them flinched and squinted as the room was filled with light.  
  
Quickly their eyes landed on Five.   
  
He was slumped against the motel room door, dark circles under his eyes and a small trail of dried blood under one nostril, still unconscious but clearly restless. His eyes were darting around beneath his closed lids and his face was screwed up in what appeared to be total misery. The screams that had woken them all quickly turned to soft whimpers.   
  
For a moment they all froze, unsure of what to do, then Five went ridged and let out a heart wrenching wail, eyes snapping open, though even from across the room with sleep meddled minds they could see the haze in his eyes.   
  
They all leapt out of their beds and went to rush to Five.   
  
‘Wait!’ Klaus yelled out before anyone could take more than a few steps. ‘Slowly. We don’t want to freak him out.’  
  
Five slumped forwards onto his hands and knees and started sobbing into the carpet.   
  
‘Klaus!’ Diego objected. ‘He’s gonna work himself into a panic attack. We have to snap him out of it!’   
  
‘No Klaus is right.’ Vanya interjected softly. ‘We don’t want to make it worse.’   
  
Five continued sobbing, seemingly unaware of his surroundings.  
  
‘But he’s so upset.’ Allison whispered softly, the mother in her screaming out to comfort the crying child. (Even if said child was her 58 year old brother.)   
  
‘What do we do?’ Luther asked almost humming with anxious energy as he forced himself to stay back.   
  
Klaus took a few small steps forward, waving at the others to stay back. ‘Five?’ He called softly. ‘You with us buddy?’   
  
Five fisted his palms into the short, rough motel carpet, at the sound of Klaus’ voice but didn’t acknowledge him.   
  
‘It’s okay Fivey.’ Klaus soothed as he continued taking tiny steps towards his smaller brother.   
  
‘You’re okay. You’re safe. You’re here in our crappy motel home, with me, and Vanya, and Diego and Allison and Luther. We’re all here with you bud.’   
  
Five’s sobs slowed down a little and his knees hit the carpet roughly as he lost strength.   
  
‘That’s it, breath. Good job Fivey.’ Klaus slowly lowered himself onto the floor next to Five, careful to stay close enough that he was in reach if Five wanted to reach for him, but far enough away that he wasn’t crowding Five’s personal space.   
  
He didn’t say anything more than the occasional reminder to breath and soft muttered reassurances.   
  
Their siblings watched on in amazement as Five slowly calmed down at the sound of Klaus’ gentle tone, until his harsh hiccuping sobs turned to soft whimpers, and he finally lifted his head up from the carpet to look at Klaus.   
  
All of their hearts cracked at the sight of his tired, red rimmed eyes flickering over each of them in turn before falling back over to Klaus, who was still sitting patiently beside Five.  
  
‘Hey.’ Klaus whispered with a soft smile as he and Five locked eyes.  
He barely had anytime to brace himself before Five launched into his arms.   
  
Klaus’ arms wrapped around the small boy instantly, holding him close as he felt the tremors wrack through the thirteen year old body.   
  
‘Shhh.’ He soothed, rubbing Five’s back with one hand while cradling the back of his head with the other. ‘It’s okay.’  
  
Slowly their siblings walked forward to kneel beside their entangled brothers, until all of them were sitting in a semi-circle on the rough carpet in front of the motel room door.  
  
Klaus rocked back and forth, Five pressed against his chest as he looked at the others in amazement over their brothers dark head.   
  
Allison and Vanya were holding hands, silent tears running down their faces. Luther had plopped himself down right in front of the room door so that anything or anyone coming in would have to go through him first, and Diego’s hands were twitching towards were his knife holster would normally be strapped across his chest. (Klaus had made him take it off to sleep because in his own words “ _I am not sleeping next to a man wearing knifes without a safe word Diego Hargreeves!”)_  
  
They all sat there for a long while, silently showing their support until finally Five pulled his face away from Klaus’ chest.   
  
‘You all died.’ He mumbled sadly. ‘Again.’   
  
‘Oh Five.’ Allison coo’d gently. ‘It was just a dream.’   
  
‘No,’ Five slumped back into Klaus’ embrace tiredly, his words slurring in exhaustion. ‘It wasn’t. You all died, again. You keep **_dying._** ’   
  
His voice broke and more tears leaked from his swollen eyes. ‘Why do you keep dying?’ He sniffled. ‘Please stop. I don’t want to be alone anymore.’   
  
‘You’re not, Five.’ Diego shuffled forwards, keeping his movements slow and his hands where Five could see them, trying to keep the boy calm.   
  
‘You’re not alone anymore. We’re here.’ He gestured at their siblings around them, who all nodded and murmured in agreement.   
  
‘Come here.’ He reached out to Five and couldn’t hide his surprise when Five actually reached back out to him. Letting Diego pluck him from Klaus’ embrace and settle him onto Diego’s lap without a complaint. Diego swore softly under his breath at how easy Five was to lift.   
  
‘Jeez Five when was the last time you ate something?’   
  
Five shrugged halfheartedly against Diego’s chest. ‘Dunno. Been busy. Tryin’ to fix the timeline.’ His movements became clumsier as his exhaustion caught up with him.   
  
Vanya frowned at her brother and pulled herself up from the floor, her bare feet padding softly on the floor as she walked across to the bathroom, followed by the sound of running water.  
  
‘Mmmhmm.’ Allison murmured watching as Five fought against the pull of sleep. ‘Too busy for sleep too, I’m guessing.’ She cautiously reached out to brush his hair back from his face, frowning at the black circles beneath his eyes.  
  
Five shrugged again but didn’t say anything.   
  
Vanya re-joined the others on the floor, a damp towel in hand. ‘Five.’ She said softly. ‘I’m just going to clean the blood off of your face okay? Then I think we should get you to bed.’   
  
Five grunted as she reached out and carefully rubbed at the dried blood beneath his nose, too tired to object.   
  
Allison sighed tiredly as she watched Five battle to keep his eyes open. ‘We should probably _all_ get back to bed.’   
  
The others made noises of agreement as Five’s eyes finally slide shut.   
  
‘You know.’ Klaus whispered, looking at Five with tired eyes, ‘I don’t think he’s actually slept in our bed all week.’ He looked up at Diego, ‘Do you?’   
  
‘No.’ Diego agreed. ‘I haven’t seen him sleep at all. He’s always the last one to bed and the first one awake. Well…’ He paused. ‘At least I _thought_ he was the last one _going_ to bed.’ _  
  
_ Luther sighed. ‘Knowing Five he probably hasn’t slept more than a few hours all week.’   
  
‘Well he’s sleeping now.’ Allison said, standing up with a stretch. ‘And all the experts say when baby sleeps, you sleep.’   
  
Klaus sniggered. ‘You better not let him hear you say that’ he said. Though his eyes sparkled with mischief.   
  
‘Come on.’ Vanya said standing up and reaching out a hand to help Klaus up. ‘Let’s all get some sleep.’   
  
‘Do you need a hand with Five?’ Luther asked Diego as he lumbered to his feet.   
  
‘Nah I’m good.’ Diego said standing up with Five cradled in his arms. ‘Kid weighs nothing.’   
  
Allison and Vanya shared a frown at his words. ‘Tomorrows problem.’ Allison promised, Vanya agreeing with a nod.   
  
The girls climbed back into their bed as Luther padded across the room to his pull out couch.   
  
Klaus pulled back the covers on the remaining bed for Diego to lay Five down carefully, the two of them quickly climbing in after him.   
  
They all wished each other goodnight as Vanya flicked off the light.   
  
After a few minutes light snores and soft breaths filled the room as Luther and the girls quickly fell back asleep.  
  
Five rolled over in his sleep, and stiffened as a tiny whimper fell from his mouth. Diego pulled him carefully into his arms and Klaus rubbed circles into his back until he relaxed back into a calm sleep.  
  
‘Do you think he’ll be okay?’

  
Klaus scoffed playfully. ‘Are any of us?’   
  
‘True.’ Diego conceded.   
  
Silence stretched out for a long moment and Diego’s eyes grew heavy as warmth radiated through him from where Five was asleep curled into his chest.  
  
‘He’ll be okay.’ Klaus whispered into the darkness. ‘We’ll all be okay.’   
  
Another set of soft breaths filled the quiet motel room.  
  
‘We’ll be okay.’ It was whispered softly - like a prayer. ‘We have each other.’   
  
The world may have ended with a whimper but it was reborn with a whisper, a whisper of hope. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!!


End file.
